Gwyn ground her teeth. Thorne was bleeding out and Tavilla and Margo were bickering like an old married couple. Do something. She readied her body to spring, but Tavilla seemed to relax, his rigidity simply melting away.
‘He’ll be happy to know you planned to get rid of everyone in my upper ranks when you took over,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘Won’t you, Detective?’
From where she lay, Gwyn could see Margo tense, even though there was no one behind her. It was a child’s ruse, but it looked like the woman just might fall for it.
‘I never said that,’ Margo replied, looking from the corner of each eye uncomfortably.
Tavilla’s stance grew more confident as Margo seemed to shrink, finally giving in to quickly check over her shoulder.
Which was when he leaped at her, going for the gun in her hand. The pair of them fought for it, giving Gwyn the opportunity she’d been waiting for. Crawling across the floor on her belly, she reached the weapon she’d kicked to the wall a moment after a cry of pain was followed by the loud thump of a body hitting the floor.
Thorne lay on the floor on his side, one arm stretched toward Tavilla, who was sinking to his knees, a short hilt sticking from his back. Margo still held the gun with the silencer, her arm outstretched. She seemed to be uninjured, but Tavilla had a hole in his head.
Good.
Margo’s gaze fell to the gun in her hand, and for a second Gwyn thought she’d drop it, but she simply aimed at Thorne and—
Gwyn gripped the gun she’d retrieved from the floor and fired at Margo’s chest. Margo staggered back, falling on her ass. But there was no bloodstain blooming on Margo’s blouse, no cry of pain. Kevlar. The bitch.
Struggling to her knees, Margo aimed again, but this time at Gwyn.
On autopilot, Gwyn raised the gun once more, this time aiming higher. Squeezing the trigger, she controlled her breathing, keeping her hands steady.
Just as she’d practiced over the last four years. So many times. This time the bullet found its target, and Margo’s head snapped back as the bullet hit her squarely between the eyes. She toppled sideways, the gun in her hand falling to the hardwood.
Gwyn let out a sobbing breath. ‘Thorne. Thorne!’ She crawled to him, dropping the gun on the floor and pressing her fingers to his throat. Feeling for his pulse. Then shrieking when someone grabbed her shoulder.
She looked up to see a very pale Blake Segal looking down, a phone in one hand, towels in the other. ‘Is he alive?’ the kid was asking, but Gwyn could only see his mouth moving. The gun’s report had fucked with her hearing.
She grabbed at the towels and began pressing them to the knife wound in Thorne’s back. ‘Yes. But barely. Whose phone is that?’
Blake crouched beside her and pointed behind them to the room where they’d been held. ‘It belonged to the guy with the knife in his throat – the big one who brought you and Thorne in. I’ve been on the phone with 911. They’re almost here.’
Gwyn’s muscles threatened to turn to jelly with relief. ‘Tell them to send a helicopter. He’s lost so much blood. Tell them!’ she insisted when he said nothing into the phone.
‘They can hear you,’ he shouted. ‘You’re yelling.’
She winced. ‘Sorry.’
Thorne stirred, reaching behind him to grab at her arm. ‘Hey.’
Lightheaded with relief, she leaned over him, putting her mouth against his ear. ‘You better not die, Thomas Thorne. Do you understand me?’
His mouth quirked in a small but smug smile. ‘Yes. Love you.’
Her eyes began to burn and she blinked the tears away. ‘I love you too.’ She looked over to see Blake bringing more towels. The kid dropped to his knees and pulled the blood-soaked ones away, replacing them with new ones. ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He glanced up and she realized how young he was. Just a year younger than Aidan. ‘I have a message for you from someone named Carter,’ he said.
She stiffened. ‘Yes?’
‘He said to tell you “he’s okay”.’
A new wave of relief had the tears coming in earnest. Aidan. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, and Thorne squeezed her hand. But so damn weakly. She focused on keeping him calm and comfortable while Blake put steady pressure on the wound.
Saving him. Just like Thorne did for Richard. Blake’s father. It was a circle that Thorne would find ironic when he woke up. Because he would wake up. Roughly she cleared her throat. ‘Look, Blake, if you need anything when we get out of here . . . just ask, okay?’
He swallowed hard. ‘I will. Thank you.’
Thorne gestured weakly at the phone Blake had set aside, still connected to 911. ‘How did you know our location?’
Blake shrugged. ‘Used Patton’s fingerprint to unlock it and checked our GPS coordinates on Google Maps.’
Thorne rolled his eyes. ‘Smart. Should have thought of that. Where were you hiding?’
‘I hid in the closet, under a blanket. He was in too big a hurry to check.’ Blake’s throat worked as he tried to swallow. ‘I was lucky,’ he tried to say lightly, but the effect was ruined when his voice broke.
‘Smart,’ Thorne said again.
Gwyn pressed her fingers to his mouth and her mouth to his ear. ‘Be quiet now.’
He kissed her fingers, opening his eyes enough to meet hers. ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Never.’
Baltimore, Maryland,
Monday 20 June, 11.45 A.M.
Thorne woke from his umpteenth nap that day and smelled lavender. ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this,’ he murmured, and was rewarded by Gwyn’s watery chuckle. She’d kept her promise, not leaving his side for more than a few minutes at a time since he’d been airlifted to the trauma center.
She reached out to stroke his arm, which she’d been doing approximately fifteen times an hour, but he wasn’t complaining. Apparently he’d nearly died, and her constant touches were her way of assuring herself that he was still alive.
And she wasn’t the only one. Jamie squeezed his ankle briefly. ‘You okay?’
‘Fit as a fiddle,’ Thorne told him.
Jamie snorted. ‘A beat-up fiddle.’ Between Thorne and Phil, who’d been moved from the high-security hospital to the cardiac rehab unit in the same hospital as Thorne’s, Jamie was constantly on the go. At the moment, he looked worn out, but the lines of worry were finally easing from his face, and that gave Thorne peace of mind.
They’d moved Thorne from ICU to a regular room that morning, so he was preparing himself for visitors. Gwyn had shaved him after his trembling hand had nearly slit his own throat. The doctors assured him the shakiness would fade.
Which would be good, but there’d been an intimacy to being shaved by the woman he’d loved for so long. When he’d whispered that to her, she’d blushed and promised to do it whenever he wanted.
Something to look forward to.
He adjusted the bed so that he could sit up, and patted the space next to him, wordlessly asking Gwyn to cuddle up against him. He was worried about her. She was pale and looked like she’d lost weight in the few days that he’d been out of it. But she’d be okay because he was okay. And vice versa.
She sat on the edge of the bed, linking their hands. ‘You’ve got a whole contingent of visitors in the waiting room. Jamie and I have made it clear that we reserve the right to tell them to come back later if you start to get tired.’
‘Bring ’em on,’ he said, even though he could already feel a yawn starting. Stupid surgery. Stupid injury. Fucking stupid Tavilla. Thorne hated feeling so weak. But it could have been so much worse.
Joseph and Hyatt were first. ‘You look better,’ Joseph said.
‘Which isn’t exactly hard to do,’ Hyatt added.
‘I’d flip you both the bird, but it would take too much energy,’ Thorne said. ‘Is this my debriefing?’
‘Kind of,’ Hyatt said. ‘We got most of what happened on Tavilla’s yacht from the phone calls you and the Segal kid had ongoing.’
Thorne recalled sliding Brickman’s cell phone into his pocket, still connected to Joseph.